GETTING farm businesses fit for the future will be AHDB’s main thrust at this year’s CropTec event.

Given Brexit and its uncertainty about the future of UK agricultural policy and trade relationships, AHDB will be urging growers to take steps to improve performance to put their businesses in the best possible position to remain viable. Its stand will feature market analysts, benchmarking experts and technical information to help farming shape up for Brexit.

AHDB has already published two hard-hitting pieces of analysis on the cereals industry. The first, 'Post-Brexit prospects for UK grains', identified several challenges the industry would have to overcome to thrive in a post-Brexit landscape, including strong price competition from lower cost producers, the ability to supply grain of the right grade and specification and substitution of maize for other feed grains.

One of its key recommendations was for the industry to adopt a strong-minded commercial and collaborative approach to tackle the challenges proactively.

This was borne out by the second report, 'Brexit scenarios: an impact assessment', which modelled the impact of three post-Brexit policy scenarios on farm income (FBI) – results for the cereals sector showed drops in FBI under all three scenarios, with one causing cereals farms to become loss-making.

But where farms were high performing – defined as the current top 25% on an input-to-output basis – businesses remained profitable under every scenario, so AHDB said that farmers can learn from that high-performing group and to use them as a benchmark for what is achievable in the way they run their own farm businesses. Its lead analyst, Jack Watts, will provide the opening address on both event days at 9:15.

Mr Watts said: “As the industry moves towards a post-Brexit era, a key message for growers is to focus on what they can control in their own businesses. Central to this is a good understanding of business performance and how their business compares with others.

The AHDB stand also features its Brexit bucket list – which includes key steps businesses can take to build resilience and make the transition to and through Brexit smoother – and the latest AHDB Horizon reports.

One of its key steps is having a firm grasp of production costs and AHDB staff will be on hand to discuss AHDB’s benchmarking software, Farmbench.